Impulse control disorder, or ICD, is a class of psychiatric disorders characterized by impulsivity, namely the failure to resist a temptation, urge or impulse. ICD involves pathological behaviour (impulsive-compulsive behaviours (ICBs)) which can include one or more of impulsive gambling, impulsive eating, impulsive buying, impulsive sexual behaviour, impulsive cleaning, Internet addiction, punding, hobbyism, hoarding, kleptomania, impulsive smoking, impulsive medication use, and/or one or more of a large number of other impulsive behaviours.
Dopamine agonists used for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD) are known to cause impulse control disorder, amongst other causes.
Diagnosing ICD can be difficult due to the secretiveness of many of the behaviours, and/or due to the need for the individual to self-report the existence and/or severity of the behaviour. Presently, ICD behaviour is evaluated in the clinical environment, requiring highly trained and astute professionals, and ICD diagnosis and treatment is thus relatively expensive. Clinical evaluation of ICD nevertheless can be imprecise as the individual's inhibitions in the clinical environment may motivate the individual to mask symptoms, and also because the clinician often relies on subjective self-reporting and patients often fail to report ICBs due to embarrassment and/or a lack of awareness of the relationship between PD and ICD.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application.
Throughout this specification the word “comprise”, or variations such as “comprises” or “comprising”, will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
In this specification, a statement that an element may be “at least one of” a list of options is to be understood that the element may be any one of the listed options, or may be any combination of two or more of the listed options.